Saturday afternoon.
The phone rings.
It is my transplant team.

Those words — “We have a kidney for you” — are words I have waited over four years to hear. For anyone who has been on dialysis as long as I have, you know those words hold the weight of salvation. For a moment, the future shifts. Possibility opens up. Life begins to look different.

The team tells me they will call back with details. My heart is pounding, but I try to keep cool. I have learned after years of dealing with Chronic Kidney Disease and Stage 4 prostate cancer that tempering hope is part of survival.

At 7:15 PM, the call comes. More questions. I am alert, engaged, answering with the clarity of someone who has had this moment play out in his mind a thousand times. They ask if I could be at the hospital by 9 PM.

I ask for 9:30. The hospital — Porter Adventist in Denver — is 45 minutes to an hour away depending on traffic. They agree. I call a Lyft and head into the unknown.

Arrival

I am dropped at the ER entrance.
They are expecting me.
A room is ready.

This is real.

The whirlwind begins. Blood pressure. Oxygen. 15 vials of blood. An EKG. A chest X-ray. Medical staff shuffling in and out. Smiles. Encouragement. Efficiency with a dose of empathy.

The team preps me for a 9:00 AM surgery. My donor? Somewhere in the United States. A person suffering from a tragic injury, one they sadly will not survive. The family — with heartbreaking grace — has made the ultimate choice: remove life support and donate their loved one’s organs to save others.

That is where I come in.

I am the recipient.
Or at least, I could be.

A Night Like No Other

If you have ever been in a hospital room overnight, you know sleep does not come easy. Add the weight of the next morning to that — the possible transformation of your life — and forget about rest.

I did not sleep.
But I did not need to.
I was ready.

My vitals were checked repeatedly. I watched the clock. 3 AM. 5 AM. 7 AM. Nurses came in, adjusting monitors, checking my IV. Every beep and every footstep meant maybe… maybe it was happening.

At 8:00 AM, the sun peeked through the blinds. I sat in the silence and waited. The countdown was almost done.

And Then…

Just before 9:00 AM, my surgeon enters. Calm, but carrying the kind of news you never want to hear.

The donor had been removed from life support, but…
They did not pass away.

Which means:
No transplant. Not today.

I was stunned. It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. So close. So painfully close.

I am overjoyed for this person and their family.
They were given more time. That is a miracle. That is sacred.

But for me, it was crushing. I had dared to hope. I had let myself visualize life after dialysis — something I have not done for years.

The Ride Home

I had breakfast. The hospital discharged me. I called another Lyft.

It felt surreal — like the whole thing might have been a dream.

But it was not. It was a dry run, a false alarm with very real emotions.

I am home now. Exhausted. Disappointed. But strangely… even more determined.

Because this reminded me of something powerful:
The call can come at any time.

And next time…
It might actually happen.

To the family who made the choice to donate — if and when the time comes — I thank you. Your courage may save someone else’s life soon. And maybe, someday, mine.

Final Thought

For those of you walking a similar road, waiting for that call — do not lose hope. Even when it hurts. Even when the outcome does not go your way. Because one day it will. And all of this pain, all of these disappointments, will make that day mean so much more.

As always, thank you for following my journey. If you are new here, please follow my blog for more updates on kidney disease, publishing, and the fight to live fully, no matter the odds.

Stay strong. Stay in the fight.
— Don